"The most reprehensible waste is that of destruction, as in forest
fires," President Theodore Roosevelt said nearly a century ago. His
comment is as true today as it was then. Teddy Roosevelt founded the "forest
conservation" movement to restore America's forests and stop wasteful
fires. His solution: Protect forests by quickly putting out fires.

Unfortunately,
the policy of total fire suppression was a disaster. Without naturally
occurring fire, and with little or no management in many areas, forests
grew thicker and more flammable as the century progressed. Today, horrific
wildfires are wreaking terrible havoc in loss of human and animal life
as well as property.

It is therefore fitting for President George W. Bush to respond to the
wildfire crisis by offering a 21st century vision for America's forests
that incorporates our greater understanding of forestry. As the president
said in announcing his Healthy Forests Initiative in August, "We
must reverse a century of misguided mismanagement of our forests. We must
undertake a new century of forest restoration."

President Bush announced his initiative within sight of the Biscuit Fire
in southern Oregon. This fire burned one-half million acres and cost $135
million to fight. That is $270 per acre, which does not include the cost
of rehabilitation. That money would have been better spent on preventing
the disaster.

The Biscuit Fire illustrates what is wrong with our forest policy and
why President Bush wants to correct it. Instead of carefully managing
our forests, we let wildfire do it for us. Consequently, we get fire-ravaged
landscapes, burned homes, silt clogged streams and reservoirs, wildlife
habitat destroyed and society denied all the values that a wisely managed
forest could produce forever. There is no defense for this policy of neglect
and waste.

Sadly, some environmentalists would rather see our forests burn than
admit that humans can play a constructive role in nature. President Bush
will have to display determination worthy of a Roosevelt to overcome these
misguided opponents. Teddy Roosevelt did not just talk about conservation
from his bully pulpit; he threw the full weight of his office behind it.
President Bush must do the same for restoration.

Restoration forestry is more than planting trees on blackened hillsides.
It is about preventing the disaster in the first place. That means managing
whole forests rather than just scratching defensive fire lines around
communities and watching the surrounding forest burn.

Even so, restoration does not mean managing a forest just to make it
fireproof. Restoration forestry is natural management. It uses the historic
forest as a model for the future forest. No scientist or environmentalist
could conceive of more beautiful or sustainable forests, with more wildlife,
than those found by the first explorers. Resistance to monster wildfires
is just one of the most important benefits of restoration.

How do we do it? The answer is a simple three-step process: document
the historic forest and then restore and maintain it. In many cases, we
already know what our historic forests looked like and how they got that
way. If needed, we can complete the description quickly and easily using
well-known methods.

Next comes restoring the forest. While prescribed burning can help, we
cannot just put fire back into an unnatural forest and expect to get something
natural. Right now, our forests are too dense. What we must do first is
thin our forests and create new openings for young trees like those that
existed historically. Then we can use prescribed fire. The goal is to
restore the balance of living things that characterized the complete historic
forest.

Once restored, a forest requires maintenance. Therefore, cutting and
burning to mimic historical fires is essential. Like a historic forest,
the restored forest will be dynamic, but it will always contain about
the same number of younger and older trees.

Finally, how do we pay for it? Redirecting some of the National Fire
Plan money toward restoration forestry, which provides $400 million a
year for fuel reduction, would help. However, we cannot succeed without
a partnership with the private sector because there is too little public
money to do the job. That means private companies harvest only the trees
required for restoration and in exchange they get to sell the wood. This
is just common sense - why allow our forests to burn if we can use them
in a way that also restores them?

Restoration forestry will reduce wildfires, improve forest health, and
generate funds to help pay the cost. More important, it will recover the
beauty and diversity of our historic forests. Restoration is a worthy
vision for America.

Dr. Thomas M Bonnicksen is Professor of Forest Science at Texas A&M
University and author of the book America's Ancient Forests: From the
Ice Age to the Age of Discovery published in 2000 by John Wiley &
Sons, Inc. He also serves on the National
Center for Public Policy Research Advisory Board.